If revenue feels like it’s slipping in multiple directions at once, it’s worth looking at what connects the dots.
This week, we’re digging into how much your room pricing is really costing you, why AI decisions sit uncomfortably between technical and operational ownership (with one key player often left out entirely) and how preventable rework turns into one of the most underreported budget leaks.
Different problems, same root tension—decisions live in silos, revenue doesn’t.
Coming tomorrow: Forest therapy walks. Beekeeping experiences. Wellness in the redwoods. In this week’s Mint Pillow Q&A, Julie Jimenez Ramey of Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, Calif., shares how leaning into a destination's natural strengths creates guest experiences that can't be replicated anywhere else.
QUICK CLICKS
Big BBQ. The family behind Terry Black's BBQ is expanding into hospitality with plans for a $63 million independent hotel, bathhouse, restaurants and courtyard near San Antonio's Pearl District. Talk about diversifying your portfolio.
Tipping point. A new partnership between Flywire and eTip aims to make digital tipping a more seamless part of the guest payment journey, while helping hotels automate everything from tip pooling to payroll sync.
Fresh in the feed. “SpotOn,” a new hospitality podcast from the team at parking tech company Ocra, brings together industry insiders for candid conversations on the hotel ecosystem—the opportunities, the growing pains and everything in between.
Points of interest. Another sign the loyalty landscape is evolving: Bilt has added Preferred Hotels & Resorts as a transfer partner, opening up more than 700 independent properties to its members.
Approaching the commonplace with creativity. What’s the hotel equivalent of dropping a check but matching it with a gesture of profound generosity? Will Guidara invites you to interrogate your customer experience.
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SPACE & DESIGN
Sitting area at The Westman. (Courtesy The Westman/Instagram)
Polished but not precious
“In the early 1900s, people would congregate in post offices to receive news about loved ones during wartime. It feels fitting that this important building is once again a gathering place.”
The former 1930s Old Post Office in Bend, Ore., has been reborn as The Westman, a 23-room boutique hotel where soaring ceilings, original brick and Art Deco bones set the tone for something layered and lovely. Designers leaned into high/low contrast with velvet sofas beside terrazzo floors, gold leaf details and fluted lighting that nods to the building’s civic past—a deliberate pairing of softness and structure. Contemporary comfort layers over historic surfaces to create a space that feels both elevated and grounded.
Why it matters: Luxury doesn’t always mean new; it often means restraint layered over history. The Westman shows how adaptive reuse becomes a design language—not just a preservation strategy—and the most memorable details are often the ones that were already there. (Bend Magazine)
TECHNOLOGY
AI needs a GM
Are AI decisions technical decisions or operational ones? For all the buzz around AI, one role is routinely getting left out of the conversation: the GM. Knowing which guest frustrations are worth fixing, when to trust the data and where technology should support the experience instead of steering it is territory GMs know better than anyone.
Why it matters: When GMs lead the conversation early, they’re more likely to choose technology that reflects the property's identity instead of forcing the operation to adapt around software. The result is a hotel that becomes more efficient without becoming more generic. (Hotel Online)
REVENUE & INVESTMENTS
“You can't fix a leak you've never measured.”
Price the calendar, not the room
Ever wondered how much your pricing is costing you? If you’re pricing rooms from a reflex rather than an intentional strategy, it’s likely you're leaving money on the table. Unsold rooms rarely get the same attention as underpriced ones, but they can take a bigger bite out of annual revenue, so identifying genuinely soft dates and pricing them differently from high-demand nights can improve both occupancy and revenue.
Why it matters: Using market demand to price each night on its own merits can unlock meaningful revenue gains. “Charging less on the right nights and more on the rest is the whole game,” advises Ben Wolff, co-founder of Onera, an upscale landscape hotel brand, and co-founder & CEO of Oasi, an experiential hospitality marketing, management and development firm. For indie hoteliers, every room night carries more weight, which makes pricing every date the same an expensive habit. The biggest opportunity often isn't squeezing a little more ADR out of peak dates, but filling rooms that would otherwise sit empty while pushing rates higher only where demand supports it. (Modern Hospitality Playbook)
PEOPLE & STAFF
Double duty
Think your labor budget tells the whole story? Molly Preston, SVP of procurement at Pyramid Global Hospitality, contends that the real drain often comes from work that happens twice: failed room inspections, invoice corrections, repeat maintenance visits and all the little do-overs that pile up over the course of a week. Individually, they're easy to shrug off; collectively, they can add up to hundreds of “hidden labor” hours every year.
Why it matters: Independent hotels don't have the luxury of wasting time—or payroll—on preventable rework. Preston suggests replacing finger-pointing with a better question: Why did this work need to happen twice? Looking for repeat activity, bottlenecks and unnecessary second touches can uncover meaningful labor savings without cutting service or adding headcount. (Visible by Design)
POLL
Do you actively track rework at your property?
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Mint Pillow is curated and written by Jennifer Glatt and edited by Bianca Prieto.
